


Cold as it was

by Lleu



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2644169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleu/pseuds/Lleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>     <i>Cold as it was,</i><br/>     <i>We felt secure</i><br/>     <i>Sleeping together</i><br/>     <i>In the same room.</i><br/>          — Matsuo Bashō, tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa</p><p>A series of related (but not in chronological order) drabbles(-ish) written for a music shuffle meme, charting the progress of Raoul and Jon's relationship.</p><p>Predominant tone (despite the fic epigraph): melancholy and/or bitter, but with moments of levity. The song titles are the chapter titles. A loose counterpart to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2644100">Call off thoughts awhile</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mario Paradis: Lune d'argent IV

The first time Raoul noticed Jon — _really_ noticed him — was during one of their lazy rest day afternoons. They'd all gone for a swim (except, of course, Alan), and now they were lounging, naked but for their loincloths, on the riverbank. He happened to look over at Jon, and he could have sworn the other boy was glowing in the sunlight.

He later realized it was just a trick of the light, in conjunction with the paleness of Jon's skin, but he could never quite shake that image of Jon, naked, glowing.


	2. Dar Williams: "Mark Rothko Song"

Not many attended Alex's funeral. Gary flat-out refused. Alanna simply shook her head and said she'd seen enough of death for a long while. So Raoul found that he and Jon were the only of Alex's friends — former friends, he supposed — present.

"Was it something I did?" Jon asked quietly when the ceremony was over.

"What do you mean?" Raoul asked, although he thought he knew exactly what Jon meant.

"To make him hate me enough to want to kill me."

"It wasn't you, Jon," Raoul said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "It was Roger. You knew Alex, just like the rest of us. He wasn't evil. Arrogant sometimes. And Roger found a way to twist that to his own purposes."

"And now he's dead, by the hands of one of his friends," Jon said bitterly.

"There was nothing you could have done." He had no idea if that was true or not, but it was the right thing to say.

"That's what I keep telling myself," Jon said.

Not knowing what else to do, Raoul drew them down a side passage and pulled Jon into a hug. When Jon finally pulled away, he looked marginally less morose.

"Thank you, my friend," he said.

"If there's anything else you need," Raoul said, "I am yours to command. Your Majesty."

Even as he said it he knew Jon would never take him up on it.


	3. Belanova: "Y aún así te vas"

Raoul was being unfair, and he knew it. It was never going to be more than a temporary arrangement: Jon had too many obligations, and too many people looking over his shoulder, to keep showing up at Raoul's door in the middle of the night.

But even though he knew, had known from the very beginning, that Jon was always going to leave, it hurt anyway.

"I'm sorry," Jon said. "But I can't, not anymore — you understand."

"I do." He didn't trust himself to say anything more than that.

"You know I care for you, Raoul," Jon said. "Part of me always will."

Part, but not all. Maybe someday Raoul would learn to compartmentalize his feelings like that, too. Maybe that would make it better.

"I'm going now," Jon said. "I'll see you at the council meeting tomorrow."

"Yes."

Then Jon was gone, and the door closed behind him.

" _I love you_ ," Raoul whispered after him.


	4. Hapa: "Sleepwalk"

Raoul was drunker than he would have admitted the first time he and Jon slept together. Later he justified it to himself by pointing out, very reasonably, that if he _hadn't_ been drunk he never would have had the courage to kiss Jon, and that was what started the whole thing.

He was lucky things turned out as well as they did: if he'd had a few more drinks, or if he hadn't waited until past midnight to approach the prince, things might have gotten messy.

As it was, instead, they were slow. There was a lot of kissing, some fumbling, and then not a lot of clothes, and then slow caresses that, slowly, accelerated towards a finale. Afterwards their breathing slowed again, and finally Raoul found his voice again to say, slowly, "You can sleep here tonight, if you'd like."

"I think that's a good idea," Jon said with a slow, languid smile. He kissed Raoul again. "That was very nice."

"Maybe we can do it again sometime," Raoul said, smiling sleepily back.

"I think I'd like that."


	5. BOY: "Drive Darling"

As he rode out of Corus at the head of a company of the Own, Raoul looked, as he always did, back towards the palace. They were too far away by now to make out any details, but he liked to imagine that maybe Jonathan stood in one of the windows looking back at him.

It was a foolish thought, really, and he shouldn't have let himself entertain the idea for more than a few seconds. There wasn't much to miss about the castle, full of demanding nobles eager for a chance to extol the virtues of their unwed daughters, or to curry favor with one of the king's closest advisers in some other, more unsavory way.

But he always regretted leaving Jon behind.


	6. Capercaillie: "Sidewaulk Reels"

Once, when they were all at the Dancing Dove, a man of George's court dared Jon to kiss him. Jon, tipsy and laughing, obliged, to raucous cheers from the watching crowd.

Then George called for music, and soon the moment was forgotten as the Court of the Rogue turned its attention to dancing.

Raoul didn't forget, though. Part of him pointed out, quite reasonably, that it was just a silly dare, nothing more. Jon probably would have forgotten it by morning. _Maybe_ , this rational part of him suggested, _you'd be better served by looking to the man who_ offered _the dare_.

So Raoul did, and found he didn't dislike what he saw. Later, when the court had begun to disperse, Raoul followed him outside and asked if they could talk.

They did more than talk, and Raoul returned to his room with significantly more experience kissing than he had had previously. But, still, as he lay awake in his bed, waiting for sleep to come to him, his thoughts turned back to Jonathan. Always Jonathan.


	7. HAIM: "If I Could Change Your Mind"

Seeing Jon after that last conversation in Raoul's room was more difficult than he could have imagined. Jon refused to look at him during council meetings, so at first Raoul attempted to do the same, but this proved useless: Jon simply had too much to say; it would have been rude not to look at him while he was speaking, and might have attracted attention and questions that he didn't want to answer.

Looking at Jon, though, was almost worse. All it did was draw up memories of happier times, both in and out of bed.

_I've kissed those lips_ , he thought, as Jonathan discussed the distribution of troops to several eastern fiefdoms that were struggling with bandits. _And they kissed me back, once_.

When the meeting was over, Raoul left the council chamber as quickly as he could. Once he was back in his room with the door closed, he sat down on his bed and cried.


	8. Nicholas R. Wright: "Good Morrow Romeo"

Jon was already awake as Raoul drifted into consciousness the morning after their first night together.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Jon said, smiling.

"You're beautiful," Raoul said sleepily, and Jon laughed and kissed him.


	9. Beirut: "Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)"

The best days were those (infrequent) ones where Jon had no courtly obligations to attend to and could spend the whole day in bed with Raoul with no-one the wiser. They talked, sometimes, about nothing in particular. Other times they simply lay there, enjoying each other's physical presence. Sometimes they had sex. Always there was a lot of kissing, once so much that both of them ended up with swollen lips, irritated by each other's stubble after a day without shaving. And always they had each other.


	10. Flight Facilities: "Foreign Language (ft. Jess)"

Raoul saw the end coming a long time before it actually came. Jon started having less time to spend with him. Even when they were both at the palace, Raoul occasionally had to track him down, which had never been the case before. It was never going to last, he supposed, but still, he hadn't expected the end to be so soon. It felt like they'd hardly had any time at all.

Then Jon started talking about Obligations and Duty while they lay in bed and Raoul knew he was going to end it. It was only a matter of time.


End file.
